Classic of the Month - Robotron 2084

Manufacturer:	Vid Kidz/Williams
Design	Eugene Jarvis, Larry DeMar
Genre:	Fixed screen, twin-stick shooter
Year:	1982

To end 2012's run of classics, I thought I'd talk about William's 1982 fixed-screen, twin-stick shooter, Robotron 2084. The attract screen for Robotron 2084 sets out the plot as as follows:

"Inspired by his never-ending quest for progress, in 2084 mankind perfects the Robotrons: A robot species so advanced that man is inferior to his own creation. Guided by their infallible logic, the Robotrons conclude: The human race is inefficient, and therefore must be destroyed."

As the player, you must take control of a mutant humanoid to protect the last human family from wave after wave of increasingly homicidal robot monstrosities. Gameplay is as frantic as it gets, with lots of things going on at once. As well as blasting Robotrons and rescuing humans, you need to avoid the indestructible Tanks, blast the immobile Eletrodes before you run into one and stop the Braintrons from reprogramming humans into suicide bombers. In an era when almost all games were rock hard, there's something almost oppressive about the amount of things happening at once in Robotron, but thankfully Vid Kidz made sure the player was well equipped to cope with the chaos, by fitting the cabinet with two joysticks — one for movement and the other for shooting, which meant the player could run in one direction and shoot in another. The idea came about because Robotron creator Eugene Jarvis claimed he was bored of the single joystick controls that every other arcade game used at the time. It certainly provided a unique experience and it did not take long for other arcade manufacturers to adopt twin-stick controls for some of their games, not least Data East's 1984 martial arts game Karate Champ.

This video footage may not show off the game's controls, but it does show dexterity it offered the player, among such hectic gameplay.

I'm going to end this year's CotM by saying I think Robotron has had more influence on this generation of games (i.e. since the Xbox 360 launched in 2005) than any other arcade game. Between Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, Nintendo Network, PC and smart phones, this generation has seen the following games that use similar twin-stick, wave-based action to Robotron:

• Ballistic (XBLIG)
• Base 2 (PC)
• Beat Hazard (XBLIG/PC)
• Blast Factor (PSN)
• Bullet Candy Perfect (PC)
• Centipede Infestation (Wii/3DS)
• Crystal Quest (XBLA)
• Dead Nation (PSN)
• Echoes+ (XBLIG)
• Everyday Shooter (PSN)
• Gatling Gears (PC/PSN/XBLA)
• Geometry Wars: Galaxies (Wii/DS)
• Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (XBLA)
• Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 (XBLA)
• Grid Assault (PC)
• Grid Wars (PC)
• Grid Wars 2 (PC)
• HGE Wars (PC)
• I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1 (XBLIG)
• Inferno (XBLIG)
• Ion Assault (XBLA)
• JoyJoy (XBLIG)
• Minitron 2112 (iOS)
• Mono (PC)
• Mu-Cade (PC)
• Mutant Storm: Empire (XBLA)
• Mutant Storm: Reloaded (XBLA)
• Neon Wars (PC)
• P-3 Biotic (PC/PSN/XBLIG)
• Pew Pew Pod (XBLIG)
• Rainbow Wars (PC)
• RetroBlast (PC)
• Scoregasm (PC)
• Seizonrenda (XBLIG)
• Super Star Dust HD (PSN)
• Ultratron (PC)
• Veck (PC)
• Vector Infector (PC)
• Voxatron (PC)
• Waves (PC)
• X-Wars (PC)

And that's overlooking the dozens of other top-down, twin-stick shooters that are more story and mission-orientated, including the likes of Lara Croft & The Guardian of Light, Renegade Ops and the new Alien Breed trilogy. I think part of the reason for this is the now ubiquitous design of console joypads, which all seem to follow the layout of the PlayStation dual analogue controller that first appeared in the late 90s. But for all the advances in the modern games listed above, none of them actually better Robotron's intense action.

MTW